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Sandisk SSD problem

dadders6

dadders6

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 15, 2019
71
5
Dallas
I have a Sandisk 1T SSD, external drive to an iMac (Big Sur 11.7) that just started giving me this message. The Sandisk is less than 1 year old and has been working fine till now. it's formatted as Exfat. This drive has lots of important stuff on it. Is there any way to bring it back to life? I've tried a different USB port, and tried restarting the iMac. - Thanks
Thanks
Sandisc error.png
 
Plug it in to a Windows PC, it may be able to repair it. I had the same problem with a 1TB Sandisks and a 2TB. One I had to totally delete the partitions on it from a Windows PC to get it to work again. It's a known problem widely reported. I don't think there ever was a reported fix though. I just got mine by trial and error. And I don't buy that type of sandisk SSD's any more.
 
Did you buy an SSD and a case separately or was it a whole retail drive?

You could remove the SSD from the current SSD case/adapter and use another one.
Maybe the controller is just broken.

usb3s2sat3cb.main.jpg


Also using Windows or Linux to check is a good idea - just never click on Initialize ;-)
 
Try to revive it on a PC, as mentioned above.
I'd get another 1tb drive RIGHT AWAY, and if it can be revived, I'd copy over all the stuff on the drive.

Suggestion:
If this is a drive that is used only on the Mac, don't use a "PC formatting scheme".
Instead, I recommend a Mac format.

If the drive is to be used for data storage ONLY (NOT bootable or NOT USED as a time machine or other backup), I'd suggest HFS+ ("Mac OS extended, journaling enabled, GUID partition format").

If the drive is used as a backup with time machine, CarbonCopyCloner, or SuperDuper, then use "APFS, GUID partition format".

For a second drive, I'd suggest a Samsung t7 "shield".

Final thought:
If the drive has "lots of important stuff on it", your data IS NOT SAFE so long as it exists on one drive only. It needs to be backed up to at least one other drive.

Otherwise, you could face problems... just as you are facing RIGHT NOW.
 
Fishrrman said:
Instead, I recommend a Mac format.
Click to expand...
Everything you said was well said except for this one, it will indeed format as a Mac file system, but it doesn't change the fact that it can get corrupted, and since it's a Mac file system, a PC wont be able to fix it. And for whatever reason, the Mac can't fix this SSD either.

I think the drive has a bug in its firmware that makes it incompatible with Macs. After several tries and corruptions, and yes, I tried a Mac format once, I just don't plug it into any Mac's anymore, it's only for Windows PC's, where it works fine.

The time I formatted it as Mac, the only way to get it running on anything was to use Diskpart on a Windows PC, and issuing a "clean" command, which basically deletes all partitioning information, then you can repartition it and use it again.
 
dadders6 said:
I have a Sandisk 1T SSD, external drive to an iMac (Big Sur 11.7) that just started giving me this message. The Sandisk is less than 1 year old and has been working fine till now. it's formatted as Exfat. This drive has lots of important stuff on it. Is there any way to bring it back to life? I've tried a different USB port, and tried restarting the iMac. - Thanks
ThanksView attachment 2219913
Click to expand...

Your SSD is failing. Try to do a data rescue and use a new disk. Send your SSD to Sandisk service center for a replacement, it's still under warranty.
 
Tina wrote:
"I never been able to recover those files. That's why I'm never using usb drives again for storage"

I looked at the old thread again.
I'll reckon that the reason you never could recover those files is because of the password protection. Something like that makes data recovery all-but impossible.

And you STILL need to keep a second (and perhaps third) copy of your important data somewhere.
 
Fishrrman said:
Tina wrote:
"I never been able to recover those files. That's why I'm never using usb drives again for storage"

I looked at the old thread again.
I'll reckon that the reason you never could recover those files is because of the password protection. Something like that makes data recovery all-but impossible.

And you STILL need to keep a second (and perhaps third) copy of your important data somewhere.
Click to expand...
True. I've defiantly learned my lesson. But If I had to choose only ONE place, it would be the cloud.
 
TinaBelcher said:
I never been able to recover those files. That's why I'm never using usb drives again for storage.
Click to expand...
The takeaway here is not to never use external drives, but rather to back things up onto a second drive. You have to assume that any drive, internal or external, can fail at any moment.

"The cloud" is a great addition, but I would not keep everything in any one place.
 
I had a Sandisk pro ssd that went kaput after a month of use (I found that there were regular issues with these drived and mac's) so I decided to use a separate enclosure and ssd that has been working great but I do have multiple backups on external drives of my files.

I love having a fast external ssd for instant use but for extra backing up I have a 5TB external hdd that backs up my mac and all other external drives.
 
TinaBelcher said:
True. I've defiantly learned my lesson. But If I had to choose only ONE place, it would be the cloud.
Click to expand...
until there is a problem with your cloud service and stuff ends up being leaked, corrupted or goes totally missing.... any type of backup can fail it's just good to have multiple backups.
 
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